


7 Days Of Carmilla Day 1: Leaf Blowers

by xoVortex



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - All Media Types
Genre: 7DaysofCarmilla, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Perrmonde, leafblowers, permonde
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 00:35:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7198142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xoVortex/pseuds/xoVortex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lola Perry lives in a small town. She owns her own business and is pretty damn serious about baking and keeping her lawn tidy. She manages to keep everything in check until the day that two dark strangers come to town. One will test her civility. The other will change her life.</p><p>Permonde/Perrmonde story for the #7DaysOfCarmilla Day 1 prompt, "leaf blowers".</p>
            </blockquote>





	7 Days Of Carmilla Day 1: Leaf Blowers

Lola Perry reached behind her back and pulled at her apron springs. She tugged once, twice, and with a few swift movements she had removed her apron and placed it folded in its home on the shelf. What she may have lacked in finesse, she made up for with remarkable neatness. She smiled to herself as she drew the curtains and flipped the wicker sign in the window from “Welcome” to “Please Call Again.” The last patrons of the day had paid and left, and she let her mind drift to the relaxing weekend that lay ahead of her. She hummed an improvised tune, and soon she was out the door and homeward bound. 

The next morning Perry woke bright and early. Hot tea warmed her hands and lips. Just outside her kitchen window a slight wind rustled bright, papery leaves in the early light of the autumn sun, while low wispy clouds cast shadows on her lawn. Bright summer days had slowly given way to longer nights, and cooler evenings meant all the more reason to engage in one of her most favorite hobbies: baking. 

Before she could start that, however, she knew that other work must come first. There was laundry to be started, shelves to be dusted, and perhaps most urgently, leaves to be raked and bagged. The first leaves had begun to fall, and it was only a matter of time before they’d be tumbling to the ground in droves. She sipped her tea. Across the street in her neighbor's yard, little eddies of wind twirled and tossed the leaves that had already made their descent. Branches shook slightly as another gust of wind breezed through them. She clicked her tongue. “Better to stay ahead of it,” she thought to herself, and prepared to get to work. 

****

It wasn’t long before tidy, knee-high piles of leaves dotted Perry’s yard. Once the first few were formed, she set about bagging them with the efficient fastidiousness that pervaded everything she did. The morning’s work had left her lawn well-kept and free of leaves, and although she wasn’t overly obsessed with cleanliness per se, she did get a certain satisfaction out of the sense of orderliness the sight before her provided. After a quick nod to herself she set the neatly tied bags by the curb, deposited her tools in the shed, and skipped lightly up the back steps in the direction of her kitchen. 

Within a few moments she had gathered her ingredients and collected the mixing bowls, parchment paper, measuring cups and tart tins necessary for what was, in her mind, the ultimate autumn confection. She placed her heavy cookbook on its stand and as she began to flip to the properly marked page, she was stopped by the movement that caught her eye in the front yard. 

“No. No, no. No..,” she said to herself quietly. She squinted. “No,” she said again. 

Perry rushed to the front door and swung it open with the fervor of someone determined to right a grievous wrong. She surveyed the scene before her, a sense of violation singing quietly in her chest and growing louder the longer she looked. Her eyes did not deceive her. What she’d thought she’d seen from the kitchen window was now starkly confirmed for her in the light of the distantly blazing sun. 

Leaves. Hundreds of them. The leaves from her neighbor’s yard, the unkept, windswept yard of her newest neighbor, were blowing onto her lawn. She stared in disbelief for one more moment before she felt her legs carrying her across the street towards her neighbor’s front door. 

“Civility, Lola,” she said to herself. “They’ve only just begun to get settled, and perhaps they’re unaware of the damage that can be done to a lawn by fallen leaves left for weeks.” She made a conscious effort to ignore the slight sense of resentment stemming from the fact that whoever had moved into this house had not only failed to acknowledge the plate of homemade welcome cookies she had left, but also had yet to return the plate she had delivered them on despite multiple notes left. Upon reaching the door she smiled before knocking, hoping to regain her composure so that her first face-to-face interaction with her neighbor was a friendly one. 

She was about to knock again when through the glass she saw a shadow pass behind the door. It disappeared briefly before the door was abruptly opened. 

“Can I help you?” said the woman who answered. Her dark hair contrasted sharply with her fair skin, and the impatient look in this woman’s eyes conveyed to Perry that she must be interrupting something. 

“Lola Perry! I’m pleased to meet you.” Perry extended her hand and continued, smiling, “I’m your neighbor. I live just across the street.” Perry turned and motioned towards her house, and when she turned back to the woman in the doorway she was met with an expression she still couldn’t quite read. 

Maybe it was the heavy black eyeliner, or the way the woman first crossed her arms and then leaned in the doorway, but she felt that the woman was looking at her like a rare, yet annoying, and not altogether very interesting bug. 

“Okay,” the woman said. 

“I just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood and…well you see, it appears that your leaves are in my yard.” She tried to smile again. This was not going at all like she had hoped. 

The woman in front of Perry crinkled her nose, silently looking her up and down, then over Perry’s shoulder at the tidy house across the street. Tidy, that was, save for the leaves now blustering through her yard and against her hedges. 

“Nope,” she said lowly. “I didn’t put those leaves in your yard.”

“No, of course not, it’s just, we all try to stay on top of the yard work here. It’s like they say, you can’t control the wind…” Perry laughed softly, trying to lighten the mood. “I know you’ve just moved in. You can borrow my tools if you’d like, until you get situated. Some people even hire a gardener if it suits them.”

The woman in the doorway shifted. “It’s a free country,” she shrugged. “No thanks.”

Perry opened her mouth to speak again, but before she could get a word out the front door slammed in her face. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to ask about her cookie plate. 

****

Two weeks passed. The days grew colder and the leaves continued to fall. Thankfully the wind had died down, and Perry’s lawn had been spared from most of the errant leaves that did still occasionally blow free from her particularly broody neighbor’s yard. 

She had resolved to retrieve her cookie plate. Autumn would come and go, and the leaves would disappear until spring, but some plates were more than just plates. The one she was missing at present was the one she had hand painted at the paint-your-own pottery store downtown. The one she had painted with LaFontaine, the winter before they had decided to spend a spring, and then a summer, studying an abnormal batrachian population in the West Indies. That was three years ago now, and she had heard from LaFontaine that their research was going very, very well.

Perry finished breakfast and crossed the street once more. She was half resigned to the idea of not getting the plate back any time soon, but despite small setbacks she wasn’t one to give up. Plus, she still had hope of getting her hands on some fresh blackberries, and her blackberry thumbprint cookies always look best on that plate.

Perry approached the door and hesitated briefly before knocking lightly. She waited a moment, and then rapped a bit more heavily. A familiar shadow passed behind the door, and shortly thereafter the door swung open. Perry braced herself for an unpleasant interaction.

“Hello, can I help you?” The woman standing in the doorway was striking, and seemed to fill the space around her with more presence than one person should possess. 

“Hi. I’m Lola Perry! I’m your…you see, I live across the street.” Perry looked up at the stunning woman smiling before her. How very different she was from the woman who had opened the door two weeks prior. 

“How lovely,” the woman said with what seemed like true sincerity. “Matska Bellmonde. I’m very pleased to meet you.” She wore a tasteful, well-fitted white dress and Perry couldn’t help but admire the unusual locket she wore around her neck. 

“You’ll have to excuse my manners,” Matska said. “I’m still floor to ceiling with boxes in here, otherwise I would invite you in for some coffee or tea.”

“Oh, no offense taken.” Perry went on, after a beat. “Forgive me, but you, do you live here too? I met another woman here, perhaps two weeks ago.”

“My sister, Carmilla,” said Matska. “You may have met her when she was here for the delivery of the first shipment of boxes. I was not able to be here to receive them as I was detained, unexpectedly, by business.” 

“I see. Well, welcome to the neighborhood!” said Perry. Then, looking only very briefly to the floor, she went on. “Listen, Matska,I wonder if I could trouble you to keep an eye out for a plate I loaned your sister?”

“Please, you can call me Mattie. And Carmilla…she borrowed a plate?”

“Well you see I, made her a plate of cookies to welcome her to the neighborhood. I thought she lived here and I was hoping to get the plate back. It’s green, with a white Christmas tree on it with gold accents.”

“Of course! I was wondering where that had come from. Imagine my surprise when I thought Carmilla was getting into the Christmas spirit! Please, give me just a moment.” Mattie laughed as she disappeared into the dining area, and when she returned, handed Perry her plate. 

Mattie smiled, and then studied her briefly with a curious look. “You know darling, you look familiar. Have I seen you somewhere?”

“I think I’d remember that,” Perry said. A slight blush crept up her neck as Mattie continued gazing at her for a few more moments. 

“Hmm… Well, thank you very much for the neighborhood welcome, and thank you on behalf of my sister for the cookies. Was there anything else you came for?” Mattie asked.

“There is one other thing, actually. If you don’t mind, I wonder if you could try to keep the leaves from your tree from blowing through the neighborhood. It sounds silly, I know, but they tend to end up in my yard and eventually kill my grass. I’d be grateful if perhaps you could bag them before the wind has a chance to blow them in my direction.” Perry looked at her and smiled hopefully.

“I would be more than happy to do that, Lola. It was a pleasure to meet you.” Mattie smiled a bright, genuine smile as she extended her hand. 

Perry took it and said, “Thank you Mattie. It was a pleasure to meet you too.” 

They held each other’s gaze for a moment before Perry turned and trotted back to her house.

****

The next day, Perry prepared to head to the market for her usual Sunday haul. Dinner tonight would be a spinach quiche, but she was running low on eggs and had no spinach to speak of. She walked her bike along the side of her house, mentally going over her shopping list. As she turned the corner, she caught sight of Mattie working in her front yard across the street, almost completely covered from the sun under a wide-brimmed hat that seemed entirely too elegant for yard work. Mattie waved and smiled, and Perry found herself smiling broadly and waving back. She stood up a little straighter, and as she hopped on her bike she made a silent wish for there to be enough pears to make her signature pear tartlets. 

When she returned, Mattie was out of sight and so were the leaves that had been in her yard. She was amazed to see that not a single leaf had made its way on to her lawn, and on Mattie’s lawn, no leaves remained. She parked her bike and carried her groceries inside, wondering at how a simple, kind gesture could make her so happy. She was straddling the line between thinking she was oversensitive versus acknowledging that her reaction was fair since it had been awhile since she remembered someone showing that much consideration when she heard a knock at the door. 

When she answered it she saw Matska Belmonde standing at her doorstep, smiling at her from under a stylish black wide-brimmed hat. 

“Good afternoon, Lola. I hope you don’t mind the intrusion. I brought you this.” Mattie held up an orange and black contraption with “HUSQVARNA” etched into the barrel. “It’s a leaf blower. I’ve seen you cleaning the leaves stuck to your rake and I thought you might like to borrow this sometimes. It is loud, but it is very effective.” 

Perry stepped out on to her porch and took the leaf blower into her hands. “It's so…lightweight…” she said. 

“Yes,” Mattie said, “and you can borrow it as often as you like as long as you tell me.”

“Tell you what?” Perry stiffened imperceptibly. Was there a catch after all to this woman’s kindness?

“Tell me what kind of delicious treat you made my sister.” Mattie said simply. “She doesn’t tend to share well and it does not appear that she left me any to try.” She grinned.

“Oh, you didn’t get to try any?” Perry said. “They were blackberry thumbprint cookies—”

“Stop,” Mattie said. “Those sound absolutely divine. I’m sorry I missed them.”

“Unfortunately I ran out of fresh blackberries weeks ago, but perhaps I could make you something else. After all you are my true new neighbor, and it wouldn’t be right for you not to get a welcome gift of your own. How do you feel about pears? I haven’t made my pear tartlets in almost three years now and I’d love for you to try them.”

“I’d like that very much,” said Mattie. She paused and stood for a moment, considering her next words carefully. “Lola, I am still unpacking a bit, but I wanted to know if perhaps you might like to join me for tea tomorrow?”

****

The following afternoon, Lola knocked on Mattie’s door at precisely 3:00 pm. In a basket by her side she held pear tartlets, scones, butter tarts and the jams she had canned in the summer. Mattie opened the door and led her to the dining area, where there sat a light spread of small, crustless sandwiches and various types of rare, quality teas. She sat down on the small chaise while Perry stood in wonder.

“Mattie, where did you find these?” she asked.

“I think I’ve figured out where I know you from, Lola. Carmilla, while she was here mentioned a small tea shop in town. She couldn’t stop talking about the pastries, quiches, and other foods they serve there. So simple, yet subtle and perfectly-executed. On the day she left, she insisted we stop there one last time. I had had to stay in the car to finish up a phone call, but I think I may have seen you there. If that is true, I thought you might appreciate the tea I’ve collected here and there as I’ve traveled. Is it true? Was it you?”

Perry looked at the jars of tea on the table. Oolong, rooibos, darjeeling, and many other black, white, and green tees sat displayed along with their labels and areas of origin. 

“Yes, that’s my tea shop. I run it during the week, and take the weekends off. This collection is amazing, Mattie.”

“Wonderful!” Mattie clapped her hands together once. “I’m so happy you’re pleased by them. Perhaps, if there are more you’d like to try, you would also like to join me for dinner this evening?”

Perry took a seat on the lounge next to Mattie. She regarded her a moment, then with a smile said, “Yes, Mattie, thank you. I would love to.”

“In that case,” Mattie said, “The only question left is where you’d like to begin!”

**********************

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
